How Right-Wing Tax Policies Drive Inequality? – The Big Picture

Dr. Mark Weisbrot, Center for Economic and Policy Research (C.E.P.R.)/Just Foreign Policy/FAILED: What the “Experts” Got Wrong about the Global Economy, joins Thom. The chairman of the White House Council of Economic. Advisers – Jason Furman – recently wrote in the Washington Post that “Last year saw the largest single-year reduction in poverty since the 1960s.” Furman’s claim is echoed by a recent Census Bureau report that should that the typical household saw it’s income grow by about $2,800 – the fastest rate on record. But while those numbers seem rosy – they are hardly enough to conclusively say that the U.S economy is healthy. For one – the media celebrated the household income figures despite the fact that any two or more people living in the same residence are considered a “household” – and the figures don’t necessarily reflect anything about personal income. But according to Nick Buffie at the Center for Economic, “Income Inequality Has Gone Up Whether We Look At Households or Individuals” Buffie writes that whether you look at personal – family -or household income, “No matter how you toy with the precise definition of income, it’s clear that inequality has gone up: by all three metrics, median income growth failed to keep pace with overall growth from 1974 to 2015.”

Thom is a four-time Project Censored-award-winning, New York Times best-selling author. His national daily progressive radio talk show is distributed to radio stations nationwide by Westwood One, Pacifica, and Free Speech TV. More people listen daily to the Thom Hartmann Program than any other progressive talk show in the nation.